Sometimes you go through life for months and months, hoping for something to happen.  And other times, are very different.  In less than two months I've acquired a boyfriend, an apartment, a roommate, a couch, and a bike.  I'm sitting here pondering January and one Saturday morning when Esther, Morgan and I sat at a breakfast table and decided to start living, right then, with a new tenacity.  Morgan and I marked our decisions by what were in and of themselves rather meaningless things - but to us were decisive actions.  We were going to do what we'd been talking about for years.  I'd woken up that morning and just thought, today is the day.  I'm going to pierce my nose.  I've wanted to do it since I was 13. When I mentioned it to Morgan in the car on the way to breakfast, she responded, "Great. I'm going to get my tattoo."  An hour later, Esther was in on the plan and Morgan was sketching out what had been in her head and heart for many months.

I'll be first to admit that there is a certain level of peer pressure involved.  That's not true - it's something more than peer pressure.  I've loved nose piercings.  I think they are beautiful.  And moreover, I love rings.  But moreover, I can recognize that part of why I love nose rings is I love the young women who I've known with them over the past 5 years.  Krista, Jill, and Kristin Rowles being among them.  Something about each of them is so sincere and alive and fearless.  They have these qualities I admire and connect with and want to cultivate in myself.  More than liking those qualities, there's something in me that knows it's part of who I'm called to be too.  So for me, my ring was more than just getting a new piece of jewelry that I found beautiful - it was also a sort of mark on the outside, a physical action that was helping move me I felt.  I know I don't need a ring to be that kind of woman, and for years I've been choosing to become that woman.  But of late, I felt I needed it to break through something.  These are the reasons I got a nose ring - why I'd wanted one since I was 13 - and why I think it has made a huge impact on the last 6 months of my life. 

I'm not sure that my decision to "start living" is what suddenly sparked all these changes.  I think God put this crazy unbearable frustration in me to live, so that I'd be ready to accept a lot of change in the coming months.  Linda Cline has been encouraging me to "Live with expectancy" for the past two years.  And I will not lie, I was starting to wonder what I was "expecting".   And get a bit worn down.  This morning, as I'm reflecting and trying to really grasp what the Lord has been doing and is doing in me, I'm recognizing that those two years of living in expectancy really have postured me and probably reshaped me some. 

I have friends moving all over right now, taking dream jobs, quitting good jobs, starting school, starting relationships, starting marriages - and every one of them is tasting the hard work of trusting, and the excitement of risking, and the goodness of believing.  Don't give in to the ever-looming anxiety and worries my friends - let's live in expectancy and drink up this season for all that it is worth.  The Lord really is doing new things in all of us, and He seems to be moving in very big and exciting ways.  If you're still in those months and months and years of waiting and hoping - don't give up.  I've still got my lists too - but I'm so grateful for all that the Lord has poured out all the sudden.  Reminds me that everything can change in a moment.  Really.  For better or for worse.  So live tenaciously right now.  And live in expectancy. :)